For twenty minutes she improvised admiration for a man she wanted to choke, while Walter Russell implored some narrow-minded telephone supervisor to disclose the number —and implored in vain. He appealed to the American Bankers Association and they appealed to the company to help them catch the man they’d been chasing for more than four years. In vain! Russell telephoned the Waldorf supervisor who had helped them before. It was her time off.
When Russell returned, despondent, Mrs. S. was still chattering away, but running down a little. Ray wrote a note and put it under her eyes: “When he’s through, don’t hang up.” As she prolonged her last “G’by-ee-ee!” Ray took the telephone from her hand and heard the click of “Brigham’s” telephone. Ray jiggled his telephone and told the operator that he had been cut off and he didn’t know where the important call had come from. Would she please—?
That persuasive voice of Ray’s, combined with the familiar appeal, did more than all of Russell’s prayers. In a few moments the operator said that the number was Bryant 7777. But that was the big Rogers Peet store at 6th Avenue and 34th street.
Ray called that number but could not learn who had called from what one of the numerous telephones in that huge emporium. So he and Russell dashed down the stairs and finally secured a cab. It buffeted the blizzard and the traffic jams with ghastly deliberation.
They finally reached their destination with no hope of finding their man still there. But fate loves to deny prayers; then, when hope is dead, spring a surprise.
Ray and Russell questioned everybody who might have seen “a man” among all the men milling about the store. The photograph meant nothing, and Ray went up to a mezzanine cubbyhole where the switchboard operators sit. One of them vaguely remembered putting through a call to Watkins 9999. But she remembered no more.
In the last dregs of that vexation of spirit which ROB had caused him Ray went to the mezzanine railing and glanced dolefully down. Up from the basement came the top of a hat. Under it was a face—the one face of all the faces in the world that Ray was pining to see.
It was Bain, himself, in person, not a motion picture.
Ray stood not on the order of his going, but swung over the rail and dropped. He was unnoticed by Bain, who had stopped at a counter to look at the latest thing in collars. He got it.
With a leap that would have knocked a football out of the clutch of an All-American runner nearing the goal-posts, Ray flung himself on Bain’s back and collared him, Bain went flat on his face to the floor. Ray brought the captive’s two hands up behind his back in a way that neither Nature nor Bain wanted them to go.
Seeing such impolite goings-on in a haberdashery, somebody went to the door and howled “Police.” Two plain-clothesmen happened to be passing and came in; but did not arrive until Ray and Russell had robbed ROB of $900 in cash, and nearly $50,000 worth of jewelry, as well as two pistols.
The plainclothesmen believed Ray and took Bain to the destination he had been trying so hard to reach for four years and more.
Later in the day, Ray paid a bread-and-butter call on Bain in his cell and once more discussed the detective business. Bain sheepishly admitted his final mistake.
The blizzard had reminded him that he needed a heavier overcoat; but, instead of buying it first and telephoning tauntingly afterward, he had telephoned first, after pausing at a pawnshop to pawn one of Mrs. Saunders rings for a thousand dollars. He had enjoyed his long love-talk with her but had not heard her say what he had expected her to say, which was that she had been robbed.
He took his capture calmly and cheerfully admitted his mistake in giving the telephone priority to the overcoat. But then nobody is perfect, not even a criminal. As Bain confessed, “You can’t think of everything.”
Mrs. Saunders really paid for that coat since she got her jewels back and all of the thousand except the cost of the overcoat. But she learned the unwisdom of giving your telephone number, your trust, and your affections to strange men of whom you know only what they tell you. And you can’t really be sure of that.
The bank did not get its $10,000; the steel company did not get back its $18,000; the wife and mother-in-law in Chicago did not get back their $6,500. Certain hotels did not get their advances back. If the Burns company got something for its time and trouble, it certainly earned whatever it charged. And the world was a little safer when one of its most leisurely and effective swindlers was put out of commission for several years in the Sing Sing Storage Warehouse.
The American Bankers Association put a “detainer” on Bain so that when he had finished his term as a jewel-thief, he might be held and tried as an embezzler. But his family managed to raise enough money to buy him out of this second ordeal.
During Bain’s rustication his wife divorced him. She had about all the grounds there are.
But Bain was of so cheerful a nature that he held no grudge against the world or even Ray Schindler.
About twelve years after Ray had first begun to look for ROB, he ran into the man again when he called one day on a big executive. His secretary came out. It was Bain! He looked more like his first pictures; for he had gone back to glasses. But not to his original stammer. He greeted Ray almost with affection, and boasted of his fine wife and two fine children. He really owed them to Ray. And Ray, who cannot keep a grudge overnight, had long since recovered from his vexation of spirit.
The last time Ray visited that office Bain was still there, and his wife still did not know that he had ever worn the initials ROB till he nearly wore them out and RCS with them.
If you see her, don’t tell her what you know.
11.
THE DICTOGRAPH AS A PUBLIC DEFENDER
The bulk of a detective’s business concerns the crimes of individuals against individuals or corporations. Ray Schindler has done vast execution in that field; but he has also done spectacular things with groups of malefactors.
He was invited to put a whole city government into the penitentiary and he landed seven of the chief malefactors there. In the course of his attack he had to put into their greedy hands in one night no less than $100,000 in cash— probably the largest bait any detective agency ever fastened on a hook at once. His clients had to risk that amount to put an end to an unending extortion.
Guests at summer or winter resorts look on hotel keepers as ruthless robbers. They do not realize that the hotel keepers are often the victims of robbers higher-up. One reason, of course, for the high prices charged by resort hotels is that the guests demand the best of everything yet visit the hotel only during a few months of the year. The short season must pay for the entire annual upkeep.
That is one of the reasons, too, for the greed of their political parasites. They never know how long they might be allowed to stay in office. The public is fickle. They may throw out the party in office and put in reformers for a while. Soon it tires of the reformers, but the political grafter has to work hard and fast as well as secretly.
This is the story of a gang of grafters bleeding a whole city for years till the hotel men revolted against the bloodletting and sought relief. In this amazing instance of detective work on the wholesale, Ray was rescuing a whole city from political bloodsuckers and tapeworms. The individual taxpayers were powerless to do anything but pay the taxes.
As a young man, Ray Schindler had entered the detective business by way of the San Francisco political earthquake that threw Abe Ruef and Mayor Schmitz out of office and into prison. Many years later, he engineered a similar political cataclysm to shake off the rogues who had bound and gagged Atlantic City. This was one of the first cases ever known in which the dictograph demonstrated its witch-like ability to overhear unseen and to record unheard. In this affair, Ray showed his genius for operating on an enormous scale with complicated strategy.
The hotel keepers there made big money when the season was good; but their overhead was huge. And over the overhead was the blanketing, insatiable graft of a city government that seemed to have neither mercy n
or honor. It taxed the hotels at many times the rate imposed on other property-holders.
The crooks kept themselves in power by bringing whole trainloads of repeaters from the slums of Philadelphia to vote early and often in every election. The city stepfathers encouraged and protected gambling and prostitution and taxed them for all the traffics would bear. To every contract for municipal improvement a heavy percentage was added for graft.
The owners of ten of the bigger hotels finally took their problem to the owner of the Atlantic City Review. The managing editor said that a vast amount of money would be needed to overthrow such an establishment. The money was subscribed and the Burns Agency was engaged to release and redeem the hogtied city.
As the New York manager of the agency, Ray studied the grafters and their habits before making any attack on them. Since they were interested only in graft, Ray decided to feed them enough to choke them to death.
What was Atlantic City most famous for? Why, the Board Walk, of course. What could be done about the Board Walk to interest the old insatiables? Turn it to concrete. Where would the graft come in? That was easy. Under the concrete, where it would not show, must be a mattress of crushed rock. It ought to be at least four inches deep. If the city fathers voted money enough to lay such a four-inch foundation, they could arrange with the contractor to put in only three inches of crushed rock. The saving on that inch would run into big money for the thievish supervisors.
First, Ray arranged to have plans drawn up for a real concrete walk. J. W. Howard, the leading municipal engineer in America, was engaged to make the plans and the estimates. Mr. Howard did not know that his plans had any ulterior purpose.
To engage his interest it was necessary to have a plutocratic contractor as a front. For this difficult office, Ray selected one of his own staff, Edward G. Reed, whom Ray described as “one of the greatest experts in ‘roping’ and finesse that I have ever met.”
First, Reed had built himself up as a big money man, a contractor of unquestioned means even for such a job as turning the Board Walk into miles of concrete splendor. Before he finished with Reed, Ray had provided him with a high commercial rating so that any suspicious grafter who asked for a secret report on him would be satisfied.
When he was ready and Reed had engaged Engineer Howard to lay out the plans and draw up the costs, Reed descended on Atlantic City. He set up offices in one of the most sumptuous hotels. The city fathers promptly made the free-spender welcome. They blushed when he complained that the famous Board Walk offended him. He said that it made Atlantic City look cheap compared to any number of seaside resorts and spas in Europe. He showed photographs he had collected during his many jaunts about the old world.
The proud fathers regretted that they could not bring their dear city up to European standards, because the people could not afford it. But Reed pointed out that, in ten years or so, the walk would pay for itself by the lesser cost of upkeep; and soon after that it would earn for the city several hundred thousand dollars a year. This made the city fathers’ mouths water, but twenty years was a long while to wait.
Reed dropped into their ears the sweet thought that if the people could be persuaded of the big savings to come, they would not balk at the heavy initial expense. They would doubtless welcome a big bond issue.
Reed had hundreds of thousands of postcards printed showing his engineer’s plans and the beautiful improvement that such a face-lifting would make in the city’s looks. These cards, exhibited everywhere in Atlantic City, aroused the public interest to such an extent that by-and-by one of the more slithy fathers began to feel out Reed to see if he were inclined to do the right thing by the supervisors in case they advocated the project. Reed made it evident that he expected this as a matter of course. He said that he was not born yesterday, and this was not the first contract he had ever made with a city government.
But before such a contract could even be considered, the city charter would have to be amended. He knew that, too, and he knew that it would take a lot of time and trouble, for which busy men should be reimbursed. He made it plain that he was not in the contracting business for art’s sake. His estimates included a handsome profit for himself, and also an appropriate sum for those friendly cooperative spirits who might make it possible for him to put over the job.
The crookedest supervisors could not help liking Reed. His hospitality was overwhelming. Though Atlantic City is a vacation spot for New Yorkers and others, it was a workshop for the city fathers. Such of them as were open to bribery were delighted when dear old Reed invited one or two of them at a time up to New York for a change. He bedded them down in the princely suite he kept all the year round at the old Waldorf-Astoria, and he liquored them up and fed them up till they loved him.
When dear old Reed asked them to change the city charter, and volunteered to slip them a little something apiece for their cooperation, they could deny him nothing—especially when he whispered in their private ears that he would pay them anything they thought fair. The more important crooks loved him enough to confide in him that some of them could be had dirt cheap. One man was so poor though dishonest that they said he could be bought for a few thousand dollars. Another, however, held his honor so dear that he considered ten thousand cash a cheap price for it. The rest auctioned themselves off for varying amounts.
As one visualizes those long, recurrent scenes in which each slimy scoundrel haggled his soul into Reed’s clutches, one’s sympathy goes out to Reed. He had to spend days and nights in double-crossing double-crossers, in riding with them, talking with them, dining with them, swapping barroom stories with them, holding them up while they unbosomed their boozy souls, and belched their treacheries in his face.
One does not envy Reed that long pilgrimage he made among the denizens of the underworld of municipal politics. But it was a noble and a necessary work, and there seems to be no other way to keep the sewers clean except to go down and trap the rats where they work.
The better half of the task assigned to Reed was to elicit and record and compile the confessions these criminals could not otherwise be persuaded to make, the confessions of their past misdeeds.
So Reed played coy. When a city father would express his willingness to sell out himself and his city, Reed would coquet with him, and express a doubt as to the man’s sincerity, or his ability to put over such a deal. This show of timidity and doubt always set the rapacious supervisors to boasting of all the other similar jobs they had put across.
They told how, in making the contracts for paving the streets with the required four inches of concrete and cracked rock, they had made deals with some favorite contractor, whereby he would put in a bid a little lower than any of his rivals. Then they would slip over a new regulation requiring only three inches of rock. This would save the crooked contractor sometimes half a million dollars, which he would split with the friendly majority on the board of supervisors.
They told Reed how much they made out of the gambling concessions. They told him what income tax they levied on the prostitutes, and who was the collector of that vile revenue.
They vied with one another in proving how faithless they could be, and were. They were especially confidential after a day or two in the velvety privacy of Reed’s hotel suite, where they poured down liquor and coughed up confessions.
They felt free to divulge their sins because they were alone in great rooms where they could see that no eavesdroppers were near. They did not know of a certain new device called the “dictograph.” It never occurred to those innocents to look about the room, behind pictures, under the tables and chairs, for microphones. That is the first thing an up-to-date crook does now. The purchasable supervisors were unaware that dictographs were installed throughout both Reed’s hotel suite in New York and his offices in Atlantic City. These dictographs gathered up reams and reams of the history of villainy, ancient, modern and future among Atlantic City’s city fathers.
After weeks and weeks of approach and hu
ckstering, the deal was all drawn up. Agreement was reached as to the total price for changing the city charter as a preliminary to the bigger Board Walk swindle.
The charge for the new city charter was to be the tidy sum of $100,000—in hand paid, a certain amount to each man according to his private agreement.
Since it might excite suspicion to have the payments made in Atlantic City, it was arranged that they were to be made in a hotel in the nearby city of Trenton. So Ray arranged a suite of rooms for Reed with dictographs and recorders in the adjoining rooms. There were also placed in Reed’s hands $100,000 in marked bills whose numbers had also been recorded.
Then when every arrangement was perfected, the applecart was suddenly upset. At the last moment the political boss grew suspicious—not of dear-old-Reed—oh, dear, no! He grew suspicious of the newspapers and his political enemies. He said they would think it strange that so large a portion of the Board of Atlantic City supervisors should convene in Trenton all at once. Questions might be asked.
He decided, and so telephoned Reed, that he had changed his mind, and the pay-off should be made in a certain hotel in Atlantic City, a hotel which was owned by the boss himself.
This devastating message came just a few hours before the time agreed on for the Trenton rendezvous. Any delay in Reed’s arrival might wreck the whole work of so many months at so much expense.
An audacious idea occurred to one of Ray’s staff. It was the only thing left to try. One of Ray’s men telephoned the boss’s hotel and asked exactly how many vacant rooms there were. When he was told, he said that the available empty rooms would just take care of the employees of a big bakery company in a small town. Their boss, he said, had given them a two-day vacation in Atlantic City and they all wanted to be together. The room-clerk promised them every consideration, and was glad there were not more of them.
What other incident could more dramatically reveal how important it is for a detective to have a large and elastic bureau of detectives. In such a crisis Ray could almost “summon spirits from the vasty deep” to fill any dangerous and sudden vacuum.
The Complete Detective Page 19
